Ilmarinen
/
Pension and rehabilitation
/
Pension alternatives
/
Disability pension
/
Processing of disability pension
Processing of disability pension
Processing of disability pension begins when you submit an application in our online service and attach a medical certificate B to the application. You can read more about the different stages of processing a pension application here.
What is a disability pension?
A disability pension refers to disability pension granted until further notice, cash rehabilitation benefit (fixed-term disability pension), partial disability pension granted until further notice, partial cash rehabilitation benefit (fixed-term partial disability pension) or years-of-service pension.
-
You can apply for a disability pension and cash rehabilitation benefit using the same disability pension application. Your pension can be granted as a cash rehabilitation benefit if your disability is temporary.
You can apply for a partial disability pension and partial cash rehabilitation benefit using the same application. Your pension can be granted as a partial cash rehabilitation benefit if your disability is temporary.
Submit a recent medical certificate B on your health status as an attachment to your application.
Read more about applying for disability pension
Read more about applying for partial disability pension
Apply to extend your cash rehabilitation benefit or partial cash rehabilitation benefit in our MyPension service.
You can apply for an extension if you have already been granted a cash rehabilitation benefit or partial cash rehabilitation benefit. Submit a new medical certificate B in order to apply for the extension.
Apply for a pension in MyPension
Apply for a years-of-service pension with a separate application
Fill in a separate years-of-service pension application. Submit a recent medical certificate B on your health status as an attachment to your application.
In order to process a years-of-service pension application, we also need your employer to submit an employer’s statement form concerning your current work.
This is how your pension application will be processed at Ilmarinen
See below for more information about how your pension application is processed at Ilmarinen.
1. Processing of your pension application begins
Based on the reports that arrive, we will examine whether processing of the application is a matter for Ilmarinen, whether you have a legal right to the pension you are seeking, or whether any information is missing from your application.
If necessary, we will wait or ask for missing information, such as a medical certificate B, an employer’s statement form, compensation information from the accident insurance company or a bank account number.
If you do not submit a medical certificate B yourself, please indicate this in your application.
• We will wait for a maximum of five weeks if the medical certificate B is submitted later or directly from a physician. If the certificate does not arrive by the deadline, we will issue a decision to not process the application.
o If Kela has the medical certificate B, we will request it from Kela.
You can monitor the arrival of the medical certificate B in Ilmarinen’s MyPension service under My documents.
If you do not submit the employer’s statement form as an attachment to your years-of-service pension application, we will ask your most recent employer for it.
Once all the necessary reports have been received, we will make a summary of your pension case for our consultant physician and pension specialist.
2. Our consultant physician will assess your right to a pension on medical grounds
Our consultant physician will assess your work ability on the basis of the summary, system information and reports on your health. The assessment is done objectively, i.e. the physician making the decision and the applicant must not have a mutual care relationship. For this reason, the assessment is based on documents and the decision on work ability is based on the medical findings described in the documents.
The consultant physician assesses whether the medical opinion of the treating physician meets the criteria required by law for granting a pension.
Our consultant physician:
- familiarises themselves with the medical certificates received,
- ensures that the patient has been examined and treated,
- ensures equal and fair treatment,
- assesses what kind of work the applicant’s work ability is sufficient or not sufficient for,
- assesses whether there is a risk of the applicant losing their work ability and whether vocational rehabilitation can affect this risk, and
- provides medical grounds for the decision being made.
The video (only in Finnish) below (duration 4:06 minutes), explains what a good medical certificate B is like, how work ability is assessed and why the pension application can be rejected even if the treating physician recommends a pension.
-
General disability
When assessing the decline in work ability, the pension institution takes into account the person’s remaining ability to earn income by means of available work that the person can reasonably be expected to do.
When assessing the decline in work ability, the social factors taken into account are the person’s:
- education
- previous activities
- age
- place of residence, and
- other similar factors.
If a person’s work ability varies, their annual earnings are taken into account.
Vocational disability
The concept of work ability in accordance with the earnings-related pension acts is vocational for people aged 60 or over. In that case, your work ability will be assessed for the tasks you most recently handled.
The older the pension applicant, the more weight is given to vocational criteria when assessing work ability. Furthermore, the remaining functional capacity of the applicant in relation to their own work is taken into account when assessing the work ability of an applicant aged 60 or over. If the pension applicant was unemployed before the sickness allowance period, their functional capacity is mainly compared to the work that the pension applicant last performed.
3. Our pension specialist makes an overall assessment of your entitlement to a pension
Our pension specialist will make an overall assessment of your pension entitlement on the basis of the summary and a work ability assessment performed by our consultant physician. The assessment takes into account socio-economic conditions such as age, education, work experience, place of residence and employment opportunities.
In connection with each pension decision, we investigate your right to vocational rehabilitation. If you are entitled to vocational rehabilitation, you will receive a preliminary decision from us. If you are not entitled to vocational rehabilitation, we will not issue a separate decision.
If you have also applied for a national pension
If your earnings-related pension is less than EUR 1,000, we will discuss the solution with Kela. The aim is to reach a solution that is consistent with Kela. Kela has two weeks to respond to our proposed solution. If Kela has already issued its proposal, the two-week response period also applies to Ilmarinen.
In connection with further applications for cash rehabilitation benefit, a discussion process will be conducted with Kela if the amount of your original earnings-related pension was less than EUR 500.
4. You receive a pension decision from us
You will receive a decision on disability pension, partial disability pension or years-of-service pension within approximately two months after we have received your application and medical certificate B
You will receive a decision on extending a cash rehabilitation benefit or partial cash rehabilitation benefit within approximately one month after we have received a medical certificate B.
You can read more below about the different decisions and how to continue after receiving a decision.
-
In the case of a positive decision, our pension specialist will specify, among other things, the start time and duration of your disability and the start time of your pension.
You will receive a decision on your pension that specifies which pension has been granted to you, the date on which the pension begins, whether part of your pension will be withheld because of another benefit, and a calculation that allows you to check the earnings from which your pension has accrued.
Starting your pension
A disability pension or cash rehabilitation benefit can start either following the end of the sickness allowance granted by Kela or at the beginning of the month after your disability began if you have not applied for sickness allowance.
The pension starts on the first day of the month and, in the case of a fixed-term pension, ends on the last day of the month.
If you are granted a permanent disability pension, your pension will automatically become an old-age pension at your lowest confirmed old-age pension age.
Read more about what happens when you receive a pension decision
-
We issue a preliminary decision in the case of partial disability pension or partial cash rehabilitation benefit and years-of-service pension. The preliminary decision indicates which pension you are entitled to and your personal earnings limit and provides instructions on how to apply for payment of the pension.
A preliminary decision on partial disability pension or partial cash rehabilitation benefit is valid for approximately 10 months and a preliminary decision on years-of-service pension for approximately 6 months. During the validity of a preliminary decision, you can decide whether to accept the pension and look into the possibility of working part-time.
You can fill in the application for payment of a partial disability pension or partial cash rehabilitation benefit in Ilmarinen’s MyPension service, but you must return the application for payment of a years-of-service pension by post.
Read more about a payment decision for years-of-service pension
-
In certain situations, we have to issue a negative decision even if your own physician has recommended that you be granted a pension. Watch the video below (duration 1:16 minutes) to see why a pension company might reject the application.
Our pension specialist will give you a decision justified on an individual basis that explains the reasons for the negative decision.
If you are not satisfied with the decision you received, you can appeal it in writing within 30 days of being informed of the decision. It is a good idea to include a new report on your health status with the appeal. You should bring the decision you received to your next doctor’s appointment so that your treating physician knows why a negative decision was issued. Based on this, they may be able to supplement your medical certificate.
Read more about what to do if your disability pension application is denied
5. You receive information about the pension decision
If we have your telephone number, we will send you a text message when the decision has been issued. Your pension decision and the attachments are available in our MyPension service.
If you have not consented to e-services, the pension decision will also be sent to you by post.
Please make sure that your contact information is up to date in our MyPension service.
6. Payment and taxation of your pension
When you receive a positive pension decision, contact the tax authority immediately and request a pension tax card valid from the date your pension begins. The tax authority will send the tax card to Ilmarinen electronically and it is available on the following business day.
If we do not know your pension tax rate when the pension is paid, we will have to withhold 40% tax on your pension. However, we want to deposit your pension into your account with this withholding tax so that you receive the money faster. When we receive your pension tax card from the tax authority, we will correct the tax information and refund the overcharged tax to you within about one week.
If your pension continues into the next year, you do not need to submit a new tax card for the following year. Instead, we will ask the tax authorities for it.
Read more about pension payment and pension taxation
7. You can work while receiving a pension
You can work even while on a pension. Your personal earnings limit, which indicates the amount you can earn in addition to your pension, is specified in the pension decision. You must apply for a pension accrued from work done while on a pension at your lowest retirement age. This is done by filling in an old-age pension application.
Read more about working while on a pension
8. Earning-related pension card
If you were granted a permanent disability pension or years-of-service pension, we will send you an earnings-related pension card by post. This can provide you with discounts on various services. The card will be sent to you within 2–3 weeks.
People who receive a cash rehabilitation benefit, partial cash rehabilitation benefit or partial disability pension are not eligible for an earnings-related pension card.